Cher didn’t understand anything at first. 🤨
It was the 2010 MTV VMAs, and it was time to present Lady Gaga with the Video of the Year award for “Bad Romance”. When the young singer took the stage in her now-legendary raw meat dress, she held something out to Cher to hold while she gave her speech. The diva, 64 years old at the time, looked at the object without recognizing it and thought it was the work of some designer she didn’t know. Only when she lowered her gaze did she realize: it was a purse made of real meat.
Cher held it anyway, with that mix of surprise and elegance that only she could pull off. Years later, she confessed to Heat magazine that she found it “very funny”, and even came to the design’s defense on Twitter, calling it “great”. 👜🥩
And although that night ended with her holding a purse made of meat, years later Cher spoke about her diet. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2018 she clarified that she was not vegetarian, but did say that she ate little meat and had stopped eating beef after learning about the conditions in which these animals are raised. That said, she did clarify one thing about her habits: “I like fish”.
Lady Gaga, for her part, joked onstage: she never thought she would ask Cher to hold her meat purse. An absurd and tender encounter between two generations of pop that ended up as one of the VMAs’ most endearing anecdotes.